Lanamark is sponsoring the VMware Partner Exchange in Orlando, Florida. If you are an existing partner, we would be delighted to see you there. If you work for a consultancy, a system integrator or a VAR delivering application virtualization, desktop virtualization and server virtualization solutions, we would be glad to show you how our software can help you accelerate, differentiate and de-risk your desktop and data center transformation and optimization services.

Booth: 109

Dates: February 8-11, 2011

Location: Disney's Coronado Springs Resort

VMware Professional Services organization recently announced partnerships with Lakeside Software and Liquidware Labs. Tools from these vendors will supposedly be used for VDI capacity planning. If this is really the case, then what is the role of VMware Capacity Planner in desktop virtualization planning? Is VMware conceding that VMware Capacity Planner is suitable for server virtualization planning only?

One of the most common concerns customers have is whether agents will be installed on target systems. Some customers, particularly ones in defense, healthcare and financial services sectors, will not allow agent-based data collection to be performed. Lanamark is the only ISV that provides desktop optimization and virtualization planning software that is agent-less, ensuring privacy, security and compliance of desktop infrastructure.

Then of course there is Liquidware Labs, which wants everyone to believe that its software does not use agents, when in reality it does. If you are a customer, don't let anyone convince you to install intrusive agents on your endpoints. Doing so can not only jeopardize user experience, performance and compliance of all monitored systems, but also expose these systems to data theft, malware and other security risks. You are much better off working with a Lanamark partner using Lanamark Suite.

VKernel just saw a battle card from VMware comparing VMware CapacityIQ to the VKernel portfolio of products and was devastated to learn that VMware is aggressively positioning its offering against that of VKernel. Although this may come as a surprise to VKernel, VMware is interested in selling a complete virtualization stack which includes capacity management. And there is no point to complain about it. To compete on the VMware platform against VMware is extremely difficult, so there are several strategies:

1. Diversify virtualization platform support

Besides VMware, there are many other vendors such as Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle and Parallels offering competitive virtualization solutions. These vendors provide ISV partners with more opportunities to offer complimentary solutions. However, given that VMware is still the leader in the virtualization space, supporting the VMware platform is essential even if it means having some overlap with the platform vendor.

2. Find whitespace in the VMware management stack

This is becoming very challenging since VMware is determined to provide a complete management stack for its platform - there is very little whitespace for partners. VMware is not moving up the stack just to grow revenues - it is also doing so to sustain revenues since the hypervisor is a commodity.

3. Innovate and differentiate

VMware is a massive company with significant resources behind its products. There is no point competing with brute force sales and marketing against VMware - this battle is over before it even starts. VKernel is just burning its precious venture capital trying to do so. Instead, it's critical to innovate more quickly and build differentiated offerings that go beyond what VMware is able to deliver. And to do so in a sustainable fashion.

VKernel is simply witnessing standard competitive pressures from a platform vendor. There is no surprise that VMware is showing prospects side-by-side comparisons versus VKernel. One of these battle cards probably exists for just about every vendor that has overlap with VMware.

So what have we done at Lanamark? First, Lanamark diversified and started supporting all the leading platforms, not just VMware. We are working with Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle, Parallels and VMware partners who are delivering desktop and data center optimization (and virtualization) solutions and services. Second, Lanamark provides unified instrumentation, analytics and system design capabilities that span across applications, users, workloads and the underlying IT infrastructure (both physical and virtual, from the desktop to the data center). Finally, Lanamark is innovating at a much faster pace than the team responsible for VMware Capacity Planner, providing VMware partners with unprecedented ability to accelerate design and delivery of optimized VMware solutions.

VMware partners world-wide continue to choose Lanamark Suite because Lanamark provides superior product capabilities, better field support and unparalleled responsiveness to feedback from both customers and partners. Lanamark is not feeling the love from VMware but we are certainly feeling the love from VMware partners, customers and prospects using our products every day to design and optimize VMware data centers.

Scott Lowe recently did a feature comparison between Microsoft Hyper-V R2 and VMware vSphere. The comparison is definitely worth taking a look at. Here is a tabular summary of the comparison:

In September 2008, VKernel announced its plans to deliver support for Microsoft Hyper-V in Q1 2009 in VKernel Capacity Analyzer and VKernel Chargeback. Fifteen months after its announcement and nine months after its scheduled delivery date, VKernel finally launched a beta version of only its Capacity Analyzer with support for Hyper-V.

Unlike its first-class support for VMware ESX, where it now faces competition from VMware vCenter CapacityIQ and VMware vCenter Chargeback, VKernel's support for Hyper-V has the following limitations and requirements:

1. Breaking of Virtual Appliance Encapsulation

VKernel Capacity Analyzer cannot work with Hyper-V without a new VKernel Capacity Analyzer Hyper-V Collector agent and a shared Microsoft SQL Server database. Because this agent and the database must run on Microsoft Windows, neither one can be deployed within the Linux-based virtual appliance running VKernel Capacity Analyzer.

2. Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Requirement

While many Microsoft customers are using Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, making it a system requirement for running a virtual appliance is going to be an issue for some customers.

3. Microsoft System Center Operations Manager must be integrated with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager

According to the user guide, VKernel Capacity Analyzer not only requires Microsoft System Center Operations Manager R2, but Operations Manager must also be integrated with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Again, this is a feasible configuration but not a trivial requirement for a virtual appliance that should be self-contained.

4. Microsoft SQL Server Requirement

Instead of pulling data into its own database, VKernel Capacity Analyzer now requires Microsoft SQL Server database to be shared between the VKernel Capacity Analyzer and the VKernel Capacity Analyzer Hyper-V Collector agent. 

These limitations and requirements raise the following questions:

1. Why do enterprises running Microsoft Hyper-V have to be burdened with additional system requirements for running VKernel Capacity Analyzer compared to enterprises running VMware ESX?

2. Why can't VKernel Capacity Analyzer simply run as a self-contained virtual appliance on Microsoft Hyper-V and collect data directly from Microsoft Hyper-V hosts without additional requirements for systems management and commercial database products?

3. How much additional value would enterprises actually get from VKernel Capacity Analyzer if they are already running Microsoft System Center Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager?

On March 30, 2009 Citrix opened the floodgates and started offering Citrix XenServer Enterprise for free. However to get some of the enterprise features such as High Availability it is necessary to purchase Citrix Essentials for XenServer. Here is a comparison of enterprise virtualization offerings from Citrix and VMware:

• Citrix XenServer Enterprise with Citrix Essentials for XenServer Enterprise Edition: $2,750 per server with one year Subscription Advantage.
• VMware vSphere Enterprise: $2,875 per CPU (up to 6 cores) + VMware vCenter Server Standard: $4,995.

Price Comparison

• N two-way servers (N > 3): $4,995 + N x $3,000
• Citrix XenServer Enterprise with Citrix Essentials for XenServer Enterprise Edition: $2,750 x N
• Citrix XenCenter: $0
• VMware vSphere Enterprise: $5,750 x N
• VMware vCenter Server Standard: $4,995

• N four-way servers (N > 3): $4,995 + N x $8,750
• Citrix XenServer Enterprise with Citrix Essentials for XenServer Enterprise Edition: $2750 x N
• Citrix XenCenter: $0
• VMware vSphere Enterprise: $11,500 x N
• VMware vCenter Server Standard: $4,995

  Examples

• 5 two-way servers: $4,995 + 5 x $3,000 = $19,995 savings with Citrix XenServer
• 5 four-way servers: $4,995 + 5 x $8,750 = $48,745 savings with Citrix XenServer
• 10 two-way servers: $4,995 + 10 x $3,000 = $34,995 savings with Citrix XenServer
• 10 four-way servers: $4,995 + 10 x $8,750 = $92,495 savings with Citrix XenServer

To take full advantage of VMware vSphere Enterprise six-core licensing limit, it may be worthwhile to consider the following servers with six-core AMD and Intel processors to maximize VM density:

• HP ProLiant BL465c G6, BL495c G6, BL685C G6
• HP ProLiant DL385 G6, DL585 G6, DL785 G6
• IBM BladeCenter LS22, LS42
• IBM System x3755
• Sun Blade X6240, X6440
• Sun Fire X4140, X4240, X4440

• HP ProLiant BL680c G5
• HP ProLiant DL580 G5
• IBM System x3850 M2, x3950 M2
• Sun Blade X6450
• Sun Fire X4450

Of course software licensing costs are only a component of the total cost of ownership and a number of other factors such as performance and management applications available must be considered when choosing a virtualization platform. This is exactly what solution providers using Lanamark Suite try to accomplish when presenting enterprise customers with side-by-side comparisons across end-to-end virtualization solutions that encompass hardware, software and service components.

On November 10, 2009 Lanamark announced Lanamark Suite 2009 R2. The new release dramatically extends scalability to 50,000 systems and adds support for the latest OS and virtualization platforms, including: Citrix XenServer 5.5, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, Microsoft Windows 7, VMware vSphere 4.0 and VMware vCenter. Lanamark also introduces aggressive pricing for virtual machines and enhances the Lanamark Storage Design Module to provide deep insight into current and historical usage of local and networked storage resources.

The new release is a culmination of more than nine months of close collaboration with our alliance and channel partners. Many thanks to everyone who helped us push the envelope of innovation and deliver a world-class product.

Read the official press release

Learn more about what's new in Lanamark Suite 2009 R2

As speculation looms around plans from Citrix to release Citrix XenServer as open source, it's worthwhile to analyze how such a move would impact other leading software vendors in the virtualization space.

On February 23, 2009 Citrix announced that it will give away the full version of Citrix XenServer for free. Since Citrix is not generating any revenue from XenServer, open sourcing it seems like a logical step. But how will such a move impact the marketplace? Why would Citrix spend $500M on XenSource and then make Citrix XenServer open source?

As a Microsoft partner, Citrix understands that it's better to cooperate than to compete with the software giant, particularly in the server virtualization space. By open-sourcing Citrix XenServer, Citrix would:

1. Expand Citrix XenServer market share and drive additional revenue through virtualization management software such as Citrix Essentials.
2. Offer enterprises an open-source alternative to Microsoft Hyper-V with feature parity and high degree of interoperability.
3. Increase community-based support for development and maintenance of Citrix XenServer, rather than funding R&D completely.
4. Enhance adoption and survivability of Citrix XenServer by getting other software vendors such as Novell and Oracle to support it.

Microsoft

Microsoft benefits the most from this move because there would be an open-source server virtualization alternative that would isolate two other Linux-based virtualization platform vendors: Red Hat and VMware. In other words, Microsoft is squeezing these vendors from one side with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V and from the other side with the help of Citrix XenServer.

Novell

As a company that already has good relationships with both Citrix and Microsoft, Novell has an opportunity to provide virtualization management capabilities across these two platforms. It already does this with the PlateSpin family of products. Novell may also do a port of Citrix XenServer to Novell SUSE but this is probably not a trivial effort and would take quite a bit of time.

Oracle

Oracle VM is already based on the Xen hypervisor. Whether Oracle decides to adopt Citrix XenServer depends on whether Oracle wants to give away its intellectual property to the open source community or to build dominance in the server virtualization space on its own. However, given its active participation in the Xen community, support for open source development model and antagonism towards Red Hat, Oracle may just throw its weight behind an open source Citrix XenServer.

In a nutshell Citrix, Microsoft, Novell and Oracle have a lot to gain from an open source Citrix XenServer, while Red Hat and VMware have a lot to lose from such a move. Perhaps Citrix will also rename Citrix XenServer back to XenSource Server?!

Update (November 2, 2009)

According to an interview with Simon Crosby, CTO at Citrix, XenServer will be open-sourced but the following components will not be:

• Citrix XenCenter
• Citrix XenConvert
• Drivers for Microsoft Windows

Lanamark today announced a partnership with Avnet Technology Solutions, a leading distributor of enterprise computing products, software and services with locations in more than 30 countries. The partnership will enable value-added resellers, system integrators and system builders working with Avnet Technology Solutions to use Lanamark Suite to accelerate design and delivery of desktop virtualisation, server virtualisation and storage solutions to enterprises in EMEA.

The partnership between Avnet Technology Solutions and Lanamark allows IT solution providers to offer real options to customers across virtualization and hardware platforms, rather than limiting them to a fixed combination. Now VARs, system integrators and consultants can mix-and-match:

• Software from vendors such as Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle, Parallels, Quest and VMware
• Hardware from vendors such as EMC, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Fujitsu, IGEL, NetApp, Sun and Wyse

By doing so, solution providers can build solutions that are best for their customers and then purchase all the key components of these solutions from Avnet, all while shortening sales cycles and maintaining control of sales and services opportunities.

As Microsoft gets ready to rollout Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V R2 on October 22nd, it's clear that a new wave of competition is about to begin between Microsoft and VMware. While VMware still holds a dominant position in the virtualization market, platform feature gaps, such as lack of live migration, are being closed in the R2 release.

With VMware software licensing revenues already declining 20% over the past year, the question is how will the new release from Microsoft affect VMware's ability to drive VMware vSphere sales? Will VMware respond to Microsoft at VMworld 2009 by slashing prices on vSphere or will it continue to try and charge a premium in this challenging macroeconomic climate?

More and more Lanamark partners are being asked by customers to provide side-by-side comparisons across leading virtualization platforms. The Windows Server 2008 R2 release is only going to amplify the need for solution providers to present multiple virtualization platform options to enterprise customers.

With Lanamark Suite, our partners can do just that by offering vendor-agnostic desktop virtualization, server virtualization and storage solutions to customers rather than locking them into specific vendor solutions by using vendor-centric tools such as VMware Capacity Planner.